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About the ratings

These qualitative ratings for each senate race this year let us look at the battle for the majority in a broader sense, without getting into the miniscule percentages and odds that often can be misleading and unecessary. Below, I'll briefly explain how these ratings works.

My Senate ratings

My state-by-state (or district) ratings use six "keys", and whichever candidate has more keys is the predicted winner of that state. If there is a tie, say both candidates get two keys, and two are toss-ups, then that state gets a tossup rating. If a candidate wins all six keys, it's a safe rating. If they have 5 or 4 more than the other candidate, it's likely, and 3 or 2 more is lean, while an advantage by only one produces a tilt rating. *Congressional districts don't have fundraising data and I don't use the Senate key either, so they have lower degrees of confidence.

1. Fundraising

The fundraising key simply looks at who leads in overall campaign receipts from their state (so only donations from Florida are counted for Florida's senate contest), and uses official Federal Elections Commission (FEC) data to determine which candidate wins this key in each state. Fundraising data is available here.

2. Last 5 Presidential Elections

This key goes to whichever party has won more presidential elections in each state in the past 5 cycles. I use historical data from 270toWin.

3. Last 4 Senate Elections

This key goes to whichever party has won more of the last four senate elections (two from each seat) in each state in the past 5 cycles. I use historical data from 270toWin.

4. 2018 Winner

Although we already account for how each state has voted over the past few cycles, the most recent one is almost always more predictive of this cycle, particularly with swing states. For this reason, we have a separate key for the last election for the same seat that's up for election this year, going to whichever party won it in 2018. The same data from 270toWin is used.

5. 270toWin Expert Consenus

This key is determined by whichever party is favored in the 270toWin Expert Consenus forecast, available here. Some states are rated as toss-ups, so this key can be a toss-up somewhat often. 270toWin uses ratings from Sabato's Crystal Ball, Cook Political Report, and others.

6. Polling Average Leader

Here, I simply give this key to whichever party is leading in each state polling average, all of which are available here. This key can be a toss-up if there is a tie in the average, but that is fairly uncommon.